Glossary

Wall Street

Wall Street is a hybrid of Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo which features community cards. As the name suggests, like the popular movie, greed plays a part in Wall Street and the player with the most money can leverage it to win more pots.

Players are initially dealt three hole cards, two face down, one face up. Four community cards are then dealt face up, each with a different value. The round then starts with the player with the strongest hand showing. For example a showing pair would beat a high card.

Rather than a betting round taking place, a bidding round occurs, where players choose whether to buy a community card. The card on the left of the dealer costs one betting unit, the next card two betting units, the next card three betting units and the card to the right of the dealer costs four betting units. The fee for the card then goes into the pot. If a player chooses to purchase one of the cards it is replaced from the top of the deck.

If they choose not to purchase a card, they are dealt one for free face up, like in traditional Seven Card Stud. This process repeats until every player has four face up cards. So for example if the minimum bet was $1, and a player is dealt a pair of Kings, if a King is the third community card to the left of the dealer, it would cost them $3 to take the King.

Players are then dealt a face down card and a final betting round takes place.

This is a game in which aggressive bidding can be profitable, much like in the world of stock trading from which it derives its name. Bidding heavily on a card makes it more likely to complete a very strong hand as well as make a convincing bluff. However, just like in the movie Wall Street, losing when this aggressive strategy is adopted can be a lot more costly than playing conservatively and choosing free cards.

There are also wild card versions of this game where the most expensive card can be a wild card, meaning that is has any value you want it to be. For example if you need a Queen to make a straight, it would cost you four betting units but you could purchase the wild card to count as the Queen. In this version of the game the player with the most aggressive bidding strategy has a big edge, and usually very strong hands like full houses will win the pot.